Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is a known non-invasive technique extensively used by numerous health-care providers worldwide. TENS uses an electrical current to stimulate nerves and acupuncture points across the surface of the skin. Due to its simplicity, TENS can be administered either in clinics by health-care professionals or at home by patients through various TENS devices available in the market. Its ease of use, general safety and portability make it a preferred treatment over a long term use of medications and nerve blocks for chronic pain.
A variety of TENS techniques which differ in terms of specific modalities of treatment are known. Few examples of these techniques include acupuncture-like TENS (ALTENS) and Intense TENS, which are typically applied to stimulate nerves for pain relief. These modalities are characterized based on various parameters, such as pulse frequency, pulse amplitude, pulse duration, analgesic effects, pulse pattern, etc.
Although TENS techniques are generally successful for non-invasively stimulating nerves within a patient's body, due to the relatively high impedance of the skin and underlying tissue, TENS techniques are limited to stimulating nerves near the surface of the skin. In order to overcome the high impedance of the tissue, the amplitude of the electric current can be theoretically increased to treat nerves that are deeper in the body. However, such an increase in amplitude may cause tissue heating, and thus, pain to the patient.
It may therefore be beneficial to provide methods to provide or otherwise enable such treatments, but which are non-invasive, reduce tissue heating and yield intended therapeutic effect(s) for treatment of disorders of the patient.